“Ugh! What’s the point of Melatonin if it doesn’t actually help you sleep?! Seriously!”

Finnley groaned in her bed and threw one arm over her eyes in despair. A moment later, she was twisted onto her side, peering at the clock on her bedside table with squinted eyes. God, two hours. She had been tossing and turning in her bed for two hours and she was still no closer to drifting off to sleep. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d spent a night that was truly restful, and she was starting to feel the effects. It felt like it had been months, and it probably had. As far as she could tell, Finnley hadn’t slept well since Garrett and his dad had come in and blown everything apart.

“Not that this part is his fault, and you know it. He’s going to be devastated when he finds out. If he finds out.”

Sighing heavily, Finnley got out of bed, wrapped herself in an old robe, and began to pace. It was true. Garrett hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not this time. He hadn’t asked her to keep digging into his father’s past. That was a choice she had made all on her own. At the time, it had just seemed like the thing to do, but now that she knew how checkered Mr. Wallace’s past really was she wished deeply that she had approached things differently. Because she was sure that she had to tell him what was going on, but she was also sure that there was no good way to do that. All she was going to be able to get out was her opening explanation before Garrett would be royally pissed off. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, he would have every right to be. 

“Hey! Hey, Finnley, open up!”

She let out a shriek and jumped about four feet in the air. Another quick look at the clock showed her that it was, in fact, just after three o’clock in the morning. It was by no means an appropriate time for somebody to come knocking on one’s front door, and yet she could hear a pounding voice along with the disembodied voice.

“Finnley! Open the door!”

“Chill, alright? I’m coming.”

If she hadn’t recognized the voice, she would have been on the phone with the cops so fast it would make a criminal’s head spin. She did recognize the voice, though. She recognized it immediately. It was Garrett. She had no idea that he had even known where her apartment was, let alone why he was there in the middle of the night. All she knew was that he was going to piss her neighbors off if she didn’t shut him up, and she didn’t feel like dealing with another complaint.

“What the hell, Garrett? Do you realize it’s three o’clock in the morning?”

“So what?” he asked pushing past her almost roughly.

“So people are sleeping, or at least trying to. And by the way, feel free to come in. Make yourself at home, why don’t you? Why don’t you just grab a beer out of the fridge or something, put your feet up on my coffee table?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Finnley took a deep breath and willed herself to stay calm while she quietly shut her front door. She still didn’t know why Garrett had come here, but it was obvious that he was seriously pissed off. Unfortunately, she had a very recent clandestine trip on her mind that could very well be the source of his anger. But was it possible that his mom had already called and told him about her visit? She supposed it was, but it didn’t seem in keeping with the woman she had met. That woman had been tough as nails and only looking out for her son’s best wishes. She definitely hadn’t been the kind of woman to call and tattle, although the anger on Garrett’s face begged to differ.

“I’m talking about you, Garrett, just pushing past me into my apartment without being invited in. Normally people wait to be asked before entering another person’s home.”

“Sure, I guess they do. But normal doesn’t really apply to you, right? It’s not really your thing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, you do, Finnley. You’re a smart girl.”

“Look, I get that you’re mad. You’ve made that much very clear. But I’m not going to play games with you about why. Either tell me what’s wrong, or get out of here. I’m exhausted, okay? I can’t remember the last time I actually went to bed at a normal time and slept through the night. I not only don’t want to play this game with you, I don’t have the energy.”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?! Don’t you realize that some lines just shouldn’t be crossed?”

“Did she call you? Is that what this is?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Finnley. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you. I really don’t.”

He was up and pacing around her small apartment now, his face full of rage. He reminded her of one of the big cats locked up in one of the cages in the zoo. Something about his seething anger struck her as dangerous, and she reminded herself as severely as possible that she needed to choose her next step carefully. As headstrong and stubborn as she was, even Finnley could see when she’d pushed a person too far. She’d been doing it for most of her life, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that she had finally done so with Garrett. She approached him cautiously, all but holding her hands up in a mea culpa gesture. When she was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to fling her against the wall or anything, she moved past him to the couch, careful to do so quickly so as not to stoke his anger.

“Garrett, I’m going to guess that you’re here because you found out that I went to visit your mother.”

“Good fucking guess.”

“You should know that I wasn’t there for anything bad. She’s a very impressive woman, your mother. She’s smart and funny. Some of the same things I see in you that I like so much. We actually had a very pleasant visit. I hope she told you that.”

“She didn’t tell me anything. I didn’t talk to her.”

“Well then how did you—?”

“You don’t get to ask me that right now. You don’t get to ask me anything. This isn’t about you getting answers, it’s about me getting mine. I want to know what you think you were doing. I want to know why in the hell you thought it was okay to go visit my mother when I haven’t ever mentioned her to you.”

“Garrett—”

“No, I’m not finished. I don’t know how you found out about my mom and where she is, but that’s not the part that really matters. What I want to know is why you thought it was okay to cross that line? I want to know how you could be so arrogant as to go and see her when I clearly didn’t trust you enough yet to tell you about her situation. Shit, now I can see why. Trusting you doesn’t seem like that smart of an idea at this point.”

“Are you actually looking for an answer? I honestly can’t tell. If you want one, I’ll give you one, or try to. But if you just want to yell at me, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You can always yell at me tomorrow, right? You’re my boss, at least you are if I still have my job.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with your job. You still have your job. Whatever you did with my mom, you’re still an asset to the company.”

“An asset to the company. Ouch. You sound more like your father than yourself.”

“You don’t get to do that,” he answered her coldly, his eyes so icy it made her heart leap into her throat. God, how did they get here? Whether she liked it or not this was a man she really liked, maybe the only man she’d ever met that she could really see herself being with long term. This was true and yet—somehow—she found herself arguing with him more than anything else. She had a feeling there were only so many early arguments a man and woman could weather before giving up on each other completely.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, but you were trying to hurt me, too. You know you were.”

“I was trying to get answers, which I still haven’t gotten any of.”

“Believe it or not I really was trying to help. Honest to God, I was.”

“By going behind my back? By lying to me?”

“I didn’t lie to you, not really.”

“Jesus, Finnley, I’m not going to get into semantics with you! It was deceitful, and you know it. You wouldn’t look so guilty if you didn’t.”

“Yes, okay?! Yes, I messed up. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t coming from a good place.”

“So tell me what place that was? Because I’ve gotta be honest with you, I’m having a hard time seeing it.”

“It was about some stuff Clara and Elsie told me, alright? Stuff about your father. They kept digging after we paid our little visit to Clara and Weston’s place and before you ask, no, that one wasn’t on me. I didn’t even know they were doing it until tonight. Until right before I went to see your mom, actually.”

“What does that have to do with what you did?”

“The things they told me, Garrett. There’s a lot more to your dad and his history than we knew, a lot more than just your grandparents being alive.”

“I know that.”

“No, I don’t think you do. If you had heard the things they told me—”

“I have heard them.”

“Wait, what? What are you talking about? From who? Do you mean from your dad?”

“No,” Garrett answered hotly, the first sign that he might share some guilt cropping up on his face. “Not from my dad.”

“Then from who?”

“From Clara. She called me earlier this evening, after seeing you, it would seem.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because she felt that I deserved to know who my father was. Doesn’t it seem a little funny to you that she would be the one to do that? I would have thought it would come from you, but I guess I overestimated you.”

“Huh. No, what I think is funny is that you’re yelling at me for seeing your mom behind your back on the same night that you did the same thing with one of my best friends. That’s just hilarious.”

“It’s not the same thing and you know it. She’s my mom, Finnley. She’s my mom, and she’s sick. I don’t know what you thought you would find aside from the opportunity to gape at a crazy woman.”

Finnley stared at Garrett, genuinely shocked for the first time since he had entered her apartment. Even in his anger, she hadn’t expected him to express such a low opinion of her. It hurt more than she wanted to admit, either to herself or to anyone else. She suspected it was the kind of hurt that would stay with her for a long, long time.

“Jeez, Garrett. I didn’t really know you thought of me as such a low person. I would never do a thing like that. I wouldn’t do it to you, but more importantly I wouldn’t do it to anyone. God, I wouldn’t do it to her.”

“I know,” he answered through gritted teeth, his hands moving up to his temples while his eyes shut tightly and momentarily, “that wasn’t fair. But neither is what you did. There’s a difference between what you did and what I did.”

“I don’t see it.”

“I don’t believe you. For starters, Clara contacted me. She sought me out and asked me to meet her. When I went, I thought maybe something was wrong, that you needed help or something. I didn’t leave because it was my family she was talking about. I needed the information.”

“And I needed the information your mom might be able to give. I was trying to help you, Garrett, just like you say you were trying to help me.”

“It’s not the same. You can try and convince yourself that it is all you want, but you aren’t going to convince me. You crossed a line tonight. I’m not a man with many lines, but this was one of them.”

For the first time since his arrival, Finnley felt herself falter. She’d had an idea that Garrett wouldn’t be pleased but this? No, nothing like this. It hadn’t even occurred to her that he would be hurt or offended in any essential way. Now she could see that she hadn’t given him enough credit. She stood again, wanting to find some way to express how sorry she was. Words didn’t feel like they would be enough. In the really tough situations, they hardly ever were. She reached out to him with one tentative hand, only just managing to lay it on his arm before he flinched and pulled away. It was the same movement a person made after unexpectedly touching the hot stove. It was like her mere touch was painful to him, which was unendingly painful to her.

“Garrett, please.”

“Please what? What do you want from me?”

“Nothing. I don’t want anything. I only want to say that I’m sorry.”

“Are you now? I didn’t think you were the kind of girl who apologized.”

“That’s not fair” she whispered, finding herself all of the sudden dangerously close to tears. Hearing such a low opinion of herself coming from a man she liked as much as she did Garrett was more painful than she could take. It was only by digging her nails into the palms of her hands that she kept herself from giving into her emotion.

“Maybe it’s not. I don’t know anymore. I honestly don’t know. You know the first time I saw you? Do you know what I thought?”

“No.”

“I thought that maybe uprooting my life and moving everything to New York wasn’t going to be such a bad thing, after all. Seriously, Finnley, the minute I saw you, from the very start, I knew I wanted to be around you. I’ve like you, I’ve fought to get you to take your walls down. I’ve apologized for the times when I fucked up.”

“I know you have. That’s what I’m trying to do right now.”

“But you going to see my mom behind my back is lower than any of the things I’ve done. Those were mistakes, Finnley, or misunderstandings. But you can’t tell me you didn’t know that what you were doing was wrong. That’s what I can’t get around. You knew it was wrong, and you did it anyway so that you could get what you wanted.”

“You know I liked you too, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“In that stupid bar. I’m sure you couldn’t tell because that’s how I am with guys I really like, guys I really want, but I liked you right away. I still do, so much, Garrett. Even though I act like a bitch most of the time.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Thanks?”

“I’m glad you told me. It’s good to know.”

“Can I...? Can I ask a question? A question this probably isn’t the right time for?”

“Ask away. Can’t get any weirder at this point, right?”

“What does this mean for us? Is this something you’re going to be able to get past? I know you’re angry, and I get why. You’re right, I messed up. But is it the kind of thing you can be mad about and then move past? I guess I’m asking where this leaves us. Whatever it is that’s been going on between the two of us.”

“I don’t know,” Garrett sighed again, looking anywhere but at Finnley, “I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t know.”

“Okay. Will you let me know when you do? And I promise I’ll stop messing around in your life until you do.”

“That’s probably for the best, at least until I figure out where I stand on these things. And are you going to be back at work tomorrow?”

“I don’t know, Garrett. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. I guess neither one of us knows what the hell is going on.”

She laughed shakily, one of those she had to laugh or else she’d have to cry situations. Garrett turned to her and took her face in his hands. She had a moment of blind hope that he had all of the sudden decided to forgive her, that this was when they would make up. Instead, he kissed her lightly on the forehead, shook his head as if he were answering a question only he could hear, and then he walked out of her apartment. He didn’t even bother to close the door as he went, just left it standing open. Finnley let out a strangled sound, something halfway between a laugh and a cry, and slammed the door behind him. The slam was just as likely to wake the neighbors as anything Garrett had done, but she didn’t care anymore. It felt hard to care about anything after the conversation she’d just had. This was so true that when she was met by another knock on the door a good ten minutes after Garrett had left, she didn’t bother to try and be polite. She had no doubt that it was a neighbor coming to scream at her. She didn’t care. At this point she would almost welcome it.

“Okay, come on, go ahead and let me—”

“Let you what, my dear? Let you have it? I’m hoping that this visit will save me the trouble of having to.”

“Mr. Wallace! I’m sorry, but what are you doing at my apartment in the middle of the night?”

“Oh dear. You were hoping that it was my son again, no doubt, come back to kiss and makeup? I don’t think you’ll be seeing him again, at least not tonight. He’s very sensitive when it comes to his mother, very protective. I must say, you did me a favor by paying that unsolicited visit. Gave me just the kind of leverage I needed.”

“What do you want?” Finnley heard the coldness in her voice and was relieved that it didn’t sound like fear. This was a dangerous man, standing in her doorway in the middle of the night with her being stupid enough to open the door to him. Making things even stranger was the fact that the pretense of him being just a normal business man seemed to have been dropped. Garrett’s father was here to threaten her. That was painfully clear.

“Excellent question, Finnley, and I must say I admire how you get right to the point. More people should handle themselves that way. We would get so much more done in the world if they did.”

“Then you do it. Tell me why you’re here.”

“I’m here to deliver a friendly warning, and you can do with it what you will. Stay out of my business. I was hoping we would be able to use your expertise at Cubed, but I can see now that you’re not designed to be a team player. Consider this your notice of termination. Hopefully that will make it less tempting.”

“Make what less tempting?”

“Your meddling. Something tells me that’s your go-to state of being. See to it that you mind your own business going forward. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from my son.”

“And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, you’re going to be one very sorry little girl.”